This was causing the open house sign thread to drift even further afield, so I'm moving this part of the conversation to a new thread.

On the 12VDC power / bumper sticker thought.

Any geeks want to check this out and let me know if they think it will work, I believe a single LED strip draws only a few 100 milliamps. (.015-.020) on the bench supply if I'm remebering correctly.

Circuit wise figure 19 on page 10 is about the simplest circuit I could find. I'd love to get comments from the hardcore electronics geeks. I'm thinking the ICL7660A part as it allows for 12V input, do Cars tend to be a bit higher than that? I haven't put a meter on one lately.

Thanks for the replies, this is a charge pump circuit, and EL Wire would work too, but I don't think it would be cheaper.

I'm looking at the state laws, and I'm not sure if this is kosher, especially if it's red. I know a company was trying to get the law changed so they could mount billboards, like the full color LED ones along the highways on cars, but I can't find what happened.